The way Kovtun skates, he will NEVER get the PCS scores Plushy gets. Kovtun's shoulders are hunched, he is slow, and he telegraphs his jumps because his full attention is on the technical. Kovtun starts out with big jumps but the thrill soon wears off because he has nothing else to back it up. Kovtun is not musical and has no idea of how to sell his program, even if he had any notion of what the concept of the program was in the first place.

OTOH, Plushenko had a full grasp of all of that when he was fifteen years old; he is a master at grabbing the attention of the audience and holding it through to the end of the program.

Wow. The program concept is actually better than I thought it would be and he did a backloaded jump layout with everything in there (just doubling the Salchow). Those program component scores are a joke, of course, but he did REALLY well. He's still in contention for Olympic Gold if this keeps improving up to Sochi.

Thanks for the link! Great to see that his jumps are still there, including the quad. The first footwork is good, spins could be a bit faster, but technically he's in excellent shape. I just wish the program itself were better... I mean, what happened to the actual choreography?!? There are practically zero transitions and most of the time he's stroking counter-clockwise two-footed skating. He appeared to have made such progress in Euros 2012!

The components scores are, of course, ridiculously high. He scored 8.25 for Transitions in Euros when he actually had transitions in his program, and here he scores 8.60 - one judge gave him a 9.50! There's no way this would have cleared 92 points of PCS in any ISU competition, with this choreo, and with just one quad and a doubled salchow certainly not 180, but this would certainly be enough to win Russian Nationals and earn his ticket to Sochi. I'm just not sure how this program will be received by ISU judges. Regardless of all that, it's still a very impressive skate and he should definitely be commended for being able to come back like this.

I believe this is a very "bare bones" version of the program - I think he probably put a priority on landing the jumps at this point.

From an interview on the Plushy thread on the FSU forum posted by lala - I don't know the original source of the article; via Google translate:

"- This long program - all my life. Naturally, all programs can not be folded into one. 10 minutes would be allowed to go - then I gave (smiles)! But we tried to do ... Although this is not the end of the finished material, this is not the final versions of the programs. But today I went for a drive with a soul - I love these productions, we do not knowingly chose these pieces."

Emphasis mine. Perhaps more choreo will be added in as he strengthens? He's still on painkillers:

"I still ride on painkillers: yesterday was 4 painkillers today as well. Course, I would feel a lot better and do not take these medications, but so far it is not possible. Spin But, in principle, allows to work, maybe like somewhere to feel pokomfortnee, do not pay attention to it, but so far, apparently, was not enough time after the operation."

Thanks for the link! Great to see that his jumps are still there, including the quad. The first footwork is good, spins could be a bit faster, but technically he's in excellent shape. I just wish the program itself were better... I mean, what happened to the actual choreography?!? There are practically zero transitions and most of the time he's stroking counter-clockwise two-footed skating. He appeared to have made such progress in Euros 2012!

The components scores are, of course, ridiculously high. He scored 8.25 for Transitions in Euros when he actually had transitions in his program, and here he scores 8.60 - one judge gave him a 9.50! There's no way this would have cleared 92 points of PCS in any ISU competition, with this choreo, and with just one quad and a doubled salchow certainly not 180, but this would certainly be enough to win Russian Nationals and earn his ticket to Sochi. I'm just not sure how this program will be received by ISU judges. Regardless of all that, it's still a very impressive skate and he should definitely be commended for being able to come back like this.

Everybody knows these scores a little bit high, because this was a little competiton in a little arena, where the euphoric audience panted the neck of judges ... the judges have dared to anything else to give him?? Plus some critics forget about the big impact, what the people feel-and I'm sure the judges also feel- if they can see Plushy live.
Do you remember, you didn't believe in his quads...http://www.sovsport.ru/news/text-item/657359:
Young skater Alexei Mishin group Krasnozhon who constantly trains with Olympic champion Yevgeny Plushenko and also will speak today at the tournament «Open Volvo Cup» said in an interview with " Soviet Sport ", as Plushenko looks at practices .
......
- They included two quads - toe loop and Salchow ?

- So far , yes. But the Olympics should be even and rittberger . So in two Olympic programs - short and long - Zhenya will be three different quads .

- The press wrote that he is a quad lutz jumps that he was even in his younger years, the official tournaments and has not been included because of a bad exit.

- It is a complete nonsense. Lutz I have not seen . Rumors , I guess.

- A cascade in the Olympic program prisutcvuyut ?

- 4-3. But today, in Riga , I 'm not sure that Zhenya will make it 4-3. May be limited to 3-3. Unnecessary haste is not in his plans.

It is not like his jumps are still there, like they never got lost. The man couldnt walk on February, couldnt skate until June, wasnt allowed to do a spin by August, had to skate from single jumps again, so the work he has done off season must be tremendus, he also didnt look out of breath so i suppose he did conditioning while waiting the ok to skate again. The rink is small there though.
Of course his score is too high, it is a B event and it was his comeback skate, the arena was packed, the audience was breathing on judges neck, lol! Nevertheless he had 176 something at Euros 2012 for the same content more or less so it is within his reach. He had more content there but now i trust him he will add more by Sochi time, I m not afraid of Plush as long as he is relatively healthy he will do anything human possible to skate his best and the rest are not on his hands.. The thing that he did a 3-5 is what impressed me the most.

I agree the well done 3/5 was really impressive. He's doubled jumps and left out combos with 5/3 or 6/2 so this being done shows that he's aware of everything! And it got off to a very impressive start with 3A-3T! So that's even bigger.

Amazing man he is, Plushenko. If he can jump with all of those back problems and everything, why can't others I wonder... Is it learning the correct techniques to begin with and they stay with the person? Is it mental?

“I have not performed at events for nine months. Of course, I was very nervous but held back because the first start is always tough, especially after such a complex surgery,” Plushenko said [to the]-Tass news agency. “I did not think that all I want will turn out well. There was no a quad jump but the program was worthy.” he continued.

“I do not hide the fact that my spins were a little weak, because I controlled very much all the movements and emotions. The program is still very fresh, as this is just the first tournament. No matter how things will turn out tomorrow, I must go through these events in order to remember the atmosphere of competitions and then I will look if my back and health will allow me to do all the movements.” [Plushenko] noted.

“It is hard, of course, but today I went to the ice with pleasure. When I was called, I even smiled! Somewhere in my heart I felt that I finally returned to the sport. First of all, I came here to compete with myself.” Plushenko concluded.